Martinique is not the safest place in the world, and we ran into that 2-1/2 years ago on Ocean Princess. Couple on 2nd day of cruise, were on a ship excursion and thought man on excursion with them. WRONG!!! He invited them up to see a chapel with him, and turned out to be a bandero, who robbed, and beat them severely. They were able to crawl back to the bus, but many fractures beyond what coculd be handled on the ship, so both were airlifted off to the mainland. If you are not doing a excursion, be sure to travel with a large group, NEVER going anywhere by yourself. As far as Barbados (1 of my favorites, the other is Curacao), we did caverns and Orchid World last year when there. We were just there 2 weeks ago, and don't know if this is offered with Carnival, as we were on Princess, but we did a photographic excursion of Barbados. Sights that you would never see during normal excursions. Our guide was a professional photographer, that gave us very helpful tips about picture taking. My pictures before/after this excursion, were extremely dramatic. I'll take this tour anytime I go back to the island. Have fun, you'll love Barbados anyway. Great store right on the dock that has just about every store imaginable, and several kiosks right outside the building for shirts, etc. Have fun! [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_cool.gif[/img] [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif[/img]